$10 million offered to victims of forced-sterilization

North Carolina eugenics program upset 7,600 lives from 1929 to 1974

Published: 07/27/2013 at 6:54 PM

(Wall Street Journal) North Carolina will spend $10 million to compensate men and women who were sterilized in the state’s eugenics program, which was among the most extensive and long-running of its kind.

North Carolina sterilized 7,600 people from 1929 to 1974 who were deemed socially or mentally unfit. Victims were as young as 10 years old and nearly all were sterilized forcibly or with inadequate consent, according to the state.

The Legislature this past week approved a $10 million compensation fund that would begin paying out in June 2015. So far the state has identified 177 living victims.